A NATION AT WAR: IN THE FIELD | FIRST MARINE DIVISION; Marines Move Into 'Bad Guy' Land

The main column of American marines set to attack Iraq's capital raced northward today, rolling on the country's main highway to within 70 miles of Baghdad and drawing only minimal resistance.

The convoy, including dozens of tanks and some 14,000 combat troops, began its journey in the Iraqi desert and ended 40 miles away, along the newly formed front lines from which Iraqi soldiers had retreated just hours before.

Night fell to sounds of American artillery bombarding the remnants of an Iraqi force that soldiers here said had been weakened severely by an American advance team early this morning. Two Iraqi missiles streaked across the afternoon sky, fired from a site a few miles up the road. Otherwise, the Iraqi guns were silent.

The marines took up their positions here as quickly as they could climb out of their vehicles, setting up pickets and digging foxholes along a newly formed perimeter, and shutting off all their lights as soon as the sun had set. Iraqi soldiers had fallen back, the soldiers said, and taken up positions less than four miles away.

The swift movement of the troops was made possible by the furious battle overnight, in which the marines dispatched a battalion of Iraqi Army soldiers. An American soldier standing at the farthest edge of the American advance said that the fighting began last night and lasted until the morning, and that the Iraqi soldiers had been either captured or chased away.

''The Iraqis are lying around here,'' Staff Sgt. Kristian Lippert said, looking into the barley fields that lined the roadway.

The Iraqis seemed to have left in a hurry. American soldiers arriving at the scene found an array of ammunition, including shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets and a pair of surface-to-surface missiles.

The two missiles, three feet in diameter and 25 feet long, were being hidden aboard a freight truck in a rural neighborhood outside the city. The missiles, which appeared to be short-range Frogs, bore the recent stamps of United Nations weapons inspectors. American soldiers at the scene said the placement of the missiles in an area populated by civilians suggested that Saddam Hussein was hoping to complicate America's plans to destroy his arsenal.

The advance of one of the main salients aimed at the Iraqi capital ended a five-day hiatus that had prompted questions about America's strategy in Iraq. The marines gathered here, mostly young men, want to move forward, and five days of waiting in the desert had begun to gnaw.

''I trained six months for this thing, and now we're doing it,'' said one marine before the advance began. ''I want to finish the job so I can go home.''

Indeed, a kind of electricity seemed to fill the air as the American forces moved northward. At last, Baghdad was getting closer again, and everyone seemed to feel it. Marine officers strutted about their headquarters compound, set up hours before in an abandoned building at the highway's edge. American jets streaked freely about the skies.

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The horizon, too, offered its own display of American power. To the left, an Iraqi city glimmered in the distance. Then, with an airstrike, its lights faded black. To the right, a huge orange glow rose in the darkness, illuminating the night sky, until it, too, shrank to nothing. Seconds later, a pair of American jets skylarked to the south.

The marines set up fresh bivouacs across a wide swath of territory here, but it was unclear how long they would sit still. Officers here said they did not know, but said they were on orders to be able to move on 24-hours notice.

The advance of the marines today left them somewhat farther away from Baghdad than the American Third Infantry Division, which is advancing from the southwest. As the two columns advance, their respective roles appeared to emerge: the Third Infantry Division as the main wedge, with the First Marine Division protecting their right flank. American officers say both divisions appear to be headed for significant concentrations of Iraqi soldiers soon.

Thirteen days ago, the Army and the Marines plunged across the Iraqi border with great speed, covering more than 200 miles in four days. But, with their supply lines stretched clear back to Kuwait, they became vulnerable to attack, and last Tuesday a column of marines was ambushed. At Diwaniya, the Marines decided to stop.

Marine officers said they had spent the last several days clearing the areas around them of irregular Iraqi forces. Maj. Hunter Hobson, one of the senior officers here, said the marines fought nearly 100 engagements in the last five days.

Major Hobson and other officers said the marines had decided to bypass the city of Diwaniya itself. Officers said American bombs had already destroyed a Baath Party office as well as a stadium in the town where many of the party loyalists were said to have gathered. Marines had conducted raids around the outskirts of the city, which is thought to be a holdout for diehards of the Hussein government.

For the most part, though, the decision to bypass Diwaniya mirrors earlier ones to have American forces sweep past Iraqi population centers on their drive to Baghdad. That strategy, intended to prevent civilian casualties, set the stage for the street fighting in Nasiriya, where a large concentration of forces loyal to Mr. Hussein had come together. The ensuing battles for that city left more than 10 marines dead.

Marine officers say they are hoping that will not happen in Diwaniya, if only because their aggressive patrolling may have already diminished the number of those willing to fight for Mr. Hussein.

Driving northward into the Iraqi heartland revealed a changed landscape, politically and physically as well. Bullet-riddled cars gave evidence of the firefights that had unfolded on the way. Desert turned to farmland. For the first time in this convoy's advance from the Kuwaiti border, ordinary Iraqis could be seen walking about in groups.

But there was little contact. In the desert, one Bedouin farmer after another had lifted his hand in greeting to the passing American soldiers. Now, at the edge of Iraqi farm country, the locals appeared to be keeping to themselves. No one waved; few men even looked up.

''Hey,'' said Maj. Mark Stainbrook, ''did you see that? None of the Iraqis are waving to us anymore.''

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A version of this article appears in print on April 1, 2003, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: A NATION AT WAR: IN THE FIELD | FIRST MARINE DIVISION; Marines Move Into 'Bad Guy' Land. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe